


Rev. 22:20

by varooooom



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: F/M, Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-24
Updated: 2012-05-24
Packaged: 2017-11-05 22:09:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/411526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/varooooom/pseuds/varooooom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'<i>If I've gotta sin to see her again, then I'm gonna lie and lie and lie.</i>'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rev. 22:20

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song by Puscifer of the same name. Dedicated to the lovely Adi. ♥

_pray till i go blind, pray 'cos nobody ever survives  
prayin' to stay in your arms just until i can die a little longer  
saviours and saints, devils and heathens alike  
she'll eat you alive._

The good King of Camelot is said to have a heart of gold, pure and passionate with a love all encompassing to reach every corner of his kingdom. He is said to be the bravest of knights, who fights valiantly and honourably for what is right and just and good. He is said to be the dawning of a new era, the leader of a new world, the light of a brand new Sun.

Arthur doesn't think about what is said. He thinks instead on what he feels. 

The cold tickle of healthy grass growing strong at the foot of an old wood, tall as the sky and strong as the mountains at his back. He could burn it to the ground if he wished it so. The crisp, fresh air that nips about his face and gently cards light golden locks into the breeze like a lover's embrace in the early morn. He could fill it with the stench of blood and smoke if he needed it so. The weight of a crown upon his head, the guilt of a ruler and the lives lost at his hand, at his word, at his failure. There is nothing he can do to be rid of that - no matter how much he longs for it so.

Arthur feels his place in this world acutely as the beating of his own heart. He does not need to open his eyes to the surroundings of his perch. These woods are his own, the air, the weight on his shoulders. He knows every leaf upon the ground, every tree rooted firm, the nearest source of water, the road back to Camelot, the birds in the treetops, the cracking of a twig.

He knows it well and he know it true. His eyes only open once he feels the presence of another.

Beauty, he'd long since decided, could hold not a candle to the flame in her eyes. It seems a shame, a _crime_ , to use such feeble words as 'beautiful' and 'magnificent' to describe her. Divinity, he thinks, is a much closer, for she is not of this world in many ways. Too many ways, treasonous ways, to the point it's near painful to look upon her. But he does, he always does, and as she approaches, he does not stand for her but holds out a hand for her own. She rolls her eyes, those intoxicating eyes of sometimes-blue, sometimes-green but always, always ringed with gold, and slips her hand into his. 

Arthur kisses the back of it with a smile on his lips, "My Lady."

Morgana smirks and bows her head, "My champion."

An age old jest that seems a thousand years past, died a thousand deaths and still glows in their eyes as they stare each other down, daring the other to make the first move. Time stills, or maybe life simply fades away and leaves only Morgana (it's a feeling he is far too familiar with), leaving Arthur to take in her full appearance. She once radiated her own light, as bright and blinding as the midday Sun in her vibrant colours and fanciful gowns. Now, she casts all into darkness, wild and untamed because she is both and neither and whatever she wills to be.

She wears a red cloak every time they do this, like to spite his own. His, the Pendragon red, is that of flame; hers is that of blood. They were both given them by their father - Arthur just never knew the difference until Morgana forced him to see.

It's this that finally spurs him to action. He's always the first to move, and Arthur is fairly certain Morgana would wait for years just to see him crack first, and he does, he always does. He pulls her down to him and rolls to pin her to the forest floor. She laughs, loudly and carelessly, head thrown back and throat bared and chest heaving. It's light and airy, the same laugh he's heard since he was ten gone wrong, a song to which he cannot dance (even though she taught him). He kisses her then, to silence her mockery of him, and she snakes a hand into his hair to pull him in closer, deeper. Teeth sink into his lower lip, just so to leave a mark but not draw blood, and she uses his gasp as an opportunity to slide her tongue into his mouth. He meets her readily, hungrily, _desperately_. They need this, both of them - or perhaps Arthur's only trying to convince himself so.

Either way, Morgana quickly grows impatient and rolls them back over, hiking up the ends of her dress to pool about them. Arthur groans as she straddles his hips, watches as she grins victoriously and starts removing their cloaks. Hers is cast aside carelessly, his is used to blanket them from the forest floor, and then she kisses him as she magics off the rest of their clothing. She knows he hates it; she's never cared. He growls and flips her back underneath him, lips crushed together to stave off any further laughter and replacing it instead with harsh breathing and quiet, predatory moans.

They do not make love anymore; they _take_ it, reach into the darkest corners of each other's hearts where it's hidden beneath betrayal and death and murder and lies and promises broken. They steal it away without remorse, claim it as their own and wring it between their fingers until there's nothing left. Nothing left.

Arthur knows she will be the death of him.

So he stops and pulls back onto his knees to look at her panting beneath him. Perfect pale skin prickles with the cool morning air, flushed from all the place he's touched her. He traces the curve of her breasts with a feather light touch as though this is the first time he's known her, as if it may be the last. Morgana watches with vague amusement as he relearns her body with a reverence one might reserve for the first time they lay eyes on the moon. It means nothing to him now; there is no cosmic body that can compare to her glow beneath his thumb, perfect and private where no one else can see her. A Sun that only he can see, and he is waiting for the day it consumes him. Stubborn pride lets him smirk at her, and she reads the unspoken challenge that says he won't go down without a fight.

His lips bite and suck marks into the places he's learned to be her most sensitive. Just below her ear, the dip of her collarbones, the inside of her breasts. She arches to each one, wordless moans on her breath, and he bites down yet another. Morgana has never objected to his lovebites, as she has gladly given herself over to him, but she never leaves marks on him, never mars his skin where anyone might see it because she cannot stake claim to the King of Camelot anymore than she could its Crown Prince or the young knight before him. She knows he does not belong to her but that he will always belong to Camelot; she thinks she knows. But her marks are much deeper, much more painful and will not fade within a day's time. Her marks cut to his core and have stayed with him for years, from knight to Prince to King to pyre. She will burn him, and never know he was hers all the while.

As he catches a nipple between his tongue and teeth, she gasps and lifts her legs around him. He takes his cue and slides one hand along her waist, down her thigh to her calf, kisses a trail from the back of her knee along the inseam of her thigh, then presses her knees to her chest. Without a word, only a meaningful, teasing quirk of his brow and she glares balefully, but follows his directions and grips beneath her knees to hold her own legs for him. He hums in appreciation, runs a finger along the crease of her lips and hums again for the wetness there before spreading them apart. One thumb brushes over the little bundle of nerves as he slips two fingers inside her and she manage not to cry out, but only just so. That won't do at all - Arthur wants all of her, everything - so he slides down further and licks around her instead, probing in and out with his fingers. It can't be stopped then, and Morgana chokes out his name, hips rolling to meet him as she slowly gives in to the pleasure. He knows he's won when her legs fall free and her hands bury instead in his hair to tug him back up to her lips.

Morgana licks and sucks the taste of herself from his mouth, greedy and frantic, and Arthur lets her roll on top of him again. His proud smirk is short-lived, though, as she sinks down his length in one smooth movement. Their breathless moans mirror each other, Arthur's hands finding her hips to help steady her as she rolls them in circles. He tries to fight back, to keep his eyes open and watch her as she moves, _beautiful, so beautiful,_ but he realises he's saying it out loud and it's not enough, never enough. He sits up to get closer, claim her lips once more and pull her in deeper. She wraps her arms around his neck and smiles into his kisses, following the guidance of his hands by bucking against him and moaning out in time.

It's near to the end of their rope, but it never ends like this; Morgana always clings to him and Arthur always lays her back down beneath him to pick up a faster pace, a harder thrust, adding that tinge of desperation. She cries a mindless litany of his name and he mouths aimlessly at her neck, incapable of much else until the pressure at his spine brings him to speak the only spell he knows. Her name, just a broken utterance of ' _Morgana_ ' to bring them both over and leave them boneless, lost and hated and loved and _lost_.

As they lay together on his cloak and try to catch their breath (try and fail, there's no air left to breathe in this world, it was burned away years ago), Arthur thinks that maybe he should say something. Maybe, if he closed the minute distance between them, spoke the words lost to them, stolen from them, then maybe, _maybe_ \- but in that moment's hesitation, her hand flashes and there's a blade to his neck, her eyes burning into his with fire and blood and a hatred strong enough to be mistaken for love. A love too commonly mistaken for hatred.

"One day," she says.

"I know," he responds.

And he finally has to close his eyes when she kisses him. This is when Arthur admits defeat, when he lets Morgana have her victory - because he cannot have his eyes open to see her when she leaves him. He cannot watch her fade away to the distance, never knowing when, _if_ , he'll ever see her again. Until the next time he feels that unmistakable _pull_ , that burning need that finds him here, finds her waiting for him. Tied together by the threads of fate in a noose about his neck, and he can't breathe again until the next time that may never come.

The good King of Camelot feels poisoned, and perhaps he knows it - perhaps he knows there's nothing good at all.


End file.
